Economic and Social Research Council
Funds United Kingdom economic and social science research, training, data infrastructure, and policy collaboration.
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest funder of economic, social, behavioural, and human data science research. It sits within UK Research and Innovation and is focused on delivering the greatest public benefit from social science. Based in Swindon and administered through UKRI, it covers both investigator-led work and more targeted national programmes.
Its funding portfolio includes Responsive Mode Research Grants, New Investigator Grants, Secondary Data Analysis, Postdoctoral Fellowships, Doctoral Focal Awards, Centres and Large Grants, React Awards, Connect Awards, Gambling Harms Research Grants, and Video Games and Gambling-Related Harms. Award caps in the record range from £80,000 for the Impact Acceleration Account to £10 million for Centres and Large Grants, with doctoral and thematic schemes in between.
ESRC is strongest where social science is tied to policy, evidence infrastructure, data, and public debate. Its call pattern mixes rolling or responsive routes with targeted competitions, including the new gambling levy programme, so successful applicants usually show a clear question, a defined user or beneficiary, and enough methodological discipline to justify the scale. For research organisations that can translate analysis into public benefit, it is the central UK route.